December 3, 2025
A New Edition of Bioethics Is Now Available
Bioethics (vol. 39, no. 9, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
Reproductive Ethics
December 2, 2025
Court to hear arguments on faith-based pregnancy centers’ challenge to state subpoena
(SCOTUS Blog) – The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday, Dec. 2, in a case brought by First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a group of faith-based pregnancy centers that the New Jersey attorney general’s office alleges may have misled … Read More
November 28, 2025
An Abortionist Changes Her Mind
(Plough) – It’s easy to see why Rizana’s situation was formative in my support for abortion and my decision to work professionally for abortion access. But after graduating from New York University and landing a job at an abortion clinic … Read More
November 26, 2025
Postpartum Prescription of GLP-1 Drugs Has Increased Sharply, Study Finds
(New York Times) – By mid-2024, the weight-loss drugs were prescribed for almost 2 percent of new mothers. Danish researchers were examining the use of medications during and after pregnancy when they noticed a clear trend: The number of women … Read More
November 26, 2025
Stopping GLP-1 drugs before pregnancy linked to complications
(UPI) – Women who stop taking a GLP-1 weight loss/diabetes medication just prior to a pregnancy appear to be at higher odds for excess weight gain and complications while pregnant, new research shows. As the study authors pointed out, potential … Read More
November 26, 2025
“Ticking Time Bomb”: A Pregnant Mother Kept Getting Sicker. She Died After She Couldn’t Get an Abortion in Texas.
(ProPublica) – Walker’s death is one of multiple cases ProPublica is investigating in which women with underlying health conditions died after they were unable to end their pregnancies. Walker had known that abortion was illegal in Texas, but she had … Read More
November 25, 2025
47 and Pregnant
(Slate) – Egg, sperm, and embryo donation allow women like me to give birth in our late 40s—and beyond. Not everyone is so sure we should. While there are huge upsides to parenting when you’ve (mostly) found your financial footing … Read More
November 24, 2025
Home inseminations and gray market sperm: Florida Supreme Court case meets DIY fertility
(Tampa Bay Times) – Daunted by costs, some hopeful parents are stepping into a fertility world with few guardrails. In 2021, the women broke up. As the couple filed for divorce, Brito and Rivera quietly filed to make the man … Read More
November 24, 2025
She Saved for Years for IVF. A Divorce Jeopardized the Embryos.
(WSJ) – Costly and emotionally taxing efforts to have children can be jeopardized when couples split Nelson was still married in 2020 when the fertility clinic called her at work with devastating news: Her husband had just requested the destruction … Read More
November 24, 2025
Elective IVF gains traction. Doctors have concerns.
(Axios) – In vitro fertilization has exploded across America. The number of babies born through assisted reproductive technologies — most of them via IVF — jumped 45%from 2013 to 2022. A more recent part of the surge is elective IVF … Read More
November 20, 2025
The Case for Banning Surrogate Motherhood
(WSJ) – Babies delivered under contract rather than into kinship is an ethical nightmare. For too long, affluent nations like the U.S. and the U.K. have tolerated this trade in the name of “choice” and “family equality.” Yet surrogacy is … Read More
November 18, 2025
Breast Cancer and Birth Control: A Huge New Study Shows How Science Can Be Distorted
(KFF Health News) – As misinformation about women’s health spreads faster than ever, doctors say new research on the risks of hormonal birth control underscores the challenge of communicating nuance in the social media age. The massive study, which was … Read More
November 14, 2025
A Couple Wagers Time, Hope and $300,000 on a Quest for Children
(WSJ) – In clinical terms, IVF involves removing eggs from a woman, fertilizing them in a lab with sperm and implanting embryos in the uterus. In human terms, it is an emotional and costly undertaking, circumscribed by science, chance and … Read More
November 10, 2025
Genetically Engineered Babies Are Banned. Tech Titans Are Trying to Make One Anyway.
(WSJ) – Startups funded by some of the most powerful billionaires in Silicon Valley are pushing the boundaries of reproductive genetics, hoping to prevent diseases as well as improve the chances for a high IQ and other preferred traits For … Read More
November 10, 2025
‘They treat men like vending machines’: inside the hidden world of social media sperm selling
(The Guardian) – Parenthood can seem an impossible dream for many, and online sperm donor groups offer a solution, but they can be a murky world There is a growing number of online sperm donor groups on social media. They … Read More
November 3, 2025
She Was Ready to Have Her 15th Child. Then Came the Felony Charges.
(New York Times) – MaryBeth Lewis’s desire to be a new mom again, at 65 years old, led to a custody battle like no other. When MaryBeth arrived at the maternity ward, she found her surrogate in a recovery room, … Read More
October 31, 2025
Texas Sues Tylenol Makers, Claiming They Hid Autism Risks
(New York Times) – The lawsuit follows claims by President Trump that linked acetaminophen taken by pregnant women to autism, a connection that is unproven. The Texas lawsuit claims that the companies knowingly withheld evidence from consumers about Tylenol’s links … Read More
October 31, 2025
Here’s the Latest Company Planning for Gene-Edited Babies
(MIT Technology Review) – A West Coast biotech entrepreneur says he’s secured $30 million to form a public-benefit company to study how to safely create genetically edited babies, marking the largest known investment into the taboo technology. The new company, … Read More
October 31, 2025
Patients go to court to stop embryos being destroyed after admin error
(The Guardian) – Lawyer says ‘difficult to understand’ rules on storage consent led to confusion and left clients ‘in limbo’ A group of at least 15 fertility patients are taking legal action to prevent their frozen embryos being destroyed as … Read More
October 30, 2025
Anxiety over global warming leading some young Americans to say they don’t want kids
(ABC News) – Younger generations of Americans are increasingly citing climate change as making them reticent to have children, according to several studies. They are worried about bringing children into a world with increasing and more intense extreme weather events, … Read More
October 30, 2025
Covid in pregnancy tied to autism, developmental issues, study says
(Washington Post) – A study published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology analyzed more than 18,100 births in Massachusetts of children born to women who contracted the virus starting in the early months of the pandemic through some of 2021. … Read More
October 30, 2025
The Quiet Collapse of America’s Reproductive Health Safety Net
(KFF Health News) – Maine Family Planning’s closures are among the first visible signs of what health leaders call the biggest setback to reproductive care in half a century. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population … Read More
October 30, 2025
What we know about Tylenol and autism, as Texas AG Ken Paxton files suit
(Straight Arrow News) – In total, the scientists reviewed 46 studies. Of those, 27 studies reported that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was related to an increased risk of a child developing autism and ADHD. Nine studies found no association, while … Read More
October 28, 2025
US stillbirth rate is higher than reported
(Reuters via Yahoo!) – Stillbirths in the U.S. are more common than previously reported, affecting roughly 1 in 150 pregnancies, and rates are even higher in lower-income areas, according to results from a large study published on Monday. The national … Read More
October 24, 2025
Common IVF test misses some genetic abnormalities in embryos
(New Scientist) – Human embryos formed with in vitro fertilisation can develop genetic abnormalities in the time between genetic testing and implantation – though this may not affect their viability During in vitro fertilisation (IVF), embryos undergo genetic testing before … Read More
